>Someone closer to retirement with a lot of savings and low expenses will have a completely different answer than a younger person with low savings and a family.

Maybe this is the way companies rid themselves of older workers who push back on things. The FIRE movement is huge in tech, and I imagine a not insignificant number of people have RTO as the last straw where they pull the ripcord. Personally, for me? There's no going back. The only way you could get me into the office on a regular basis is if you let me work on rovers at JPL or something.

For myself, I'd love nothing more if I could code part time in retirement, for the rest of my life, but I won't RTO to do it. If I have to leave development behind? So be it.

You got the underlying reason for my question almost in passing:

I've been involved in hiring Software devs from US and LatAm for several years in different management positions. I wondered how feasible would be for say, a company in Mexico to compete on hiring a dev in the USA at a lower cost (normally, a Mexico dev is between 1/3 to 1/2 the price of a US one), by leveraging the value of [allowing] working Remote.

EDIT: Which actually made me think of a crazy idea: A job board called something like "Work for Less", where small companies or companies from overseas offer jobs that have compensations more focused on Quality of Living vs compensation. So for example, a job opening might have "We offer: 70% of your last salary. 3 day weekends, remote work". Or if it is say, a Mexican company, "We offer: 80% of your last salary. Comprehensive relocation help to live/work in a Mexican beach for 4 months a year. Medical Tourism coverage (don't know what this is called, but basically, help in say, taking people to high quality medical places)".

Maybe it is a stupid idea, but at the end of the day, Remote Work is one of several "Levers" for Quality of Life, and although historically the US has focused on monetary compensation, maybe newer generations value other aspects more.

There is also the unknown future. How stable is this remote-pay-discount bargain opportunity? If the company goes bust and you need to RTO, you need to live in a market with employment options.